Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms naturally existing in gastrointestinal (GI) tracts of humans and animals. Probiotics are described to have health benefits when administered the right amounts of live microorganisms into humans and animals. Probiotics are widely applied as nutritional supplements in animals and humans. For example, yeast is used as a nutrient supplement for livestock, and yogurt with lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus and/or Bifidobacterium is commonly used. No toxic effects are described when administered probiotics as nutrition supplements into humans and animals. In order to have the maximum effects of probiotics on animals and humans, one has to administrate live bacteria to reach gastrointestinal tracts for multiplication (Kailasapatha and Chin 2000). Lactobacillus spp and Bifidobacterium spp are two most commonly probiotics described in scientific literature and in commercial products. Both Lactobacillus spp and Bifidobacterium spp are facultative anaerobic bacteria. Most species (or strains) of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are sensitive to the exposure of oxygen (Gomes et al, 1995: Talwalkar and Kailasapathy, 2004) and high temperature. It is difficult to maintain the viability of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium at room temperature under consistent open and closure operations. Therefore, variable results are often described, especially for commercially available products that are required to have long term storage and shipping in various temperature (Tuomola et al, 2001).
Vegetables and fruits are the main sources of fibers, vitamins, natural antioxidants and minerals for humans and animals. For examples, tomato and cabbage were described as the natural source of vitamin C (Clayton and Borden, 1942). More important, the safety of vegetables and fruits has been well accepted. Recently, natural berries like Acerola that is described to be rich in ascorbic acid and polyphenols. The high content in vitamin C (695 a 4827 mg/100 g) make Acelora as the preferred choice of natural vitamin C (Mezadri et al, 2006). In addition, recent study in rats demonstrated that Acelora is safe to be as food supplement for human consumption (Hanamura and Aoki, 2008). The combination of probiotics with fresh vegetables or fruits will offer benefits from probiotics and fresh vegetables or fruits. However, fresh vegetables and fresh fruits are the natural nutritional sources for microorganisms to multiply. The replication of microorganisms in fresh vegetables and fruits not only changes the nutritional compositions of vegetables or fruits but also creates toxic compounds which either are secreted from microorganisms or generated as the side products from the replication of microorganisms or decomposition of vegetables or fruits. Whenever probiotics start to be active, it becomes difficult to keep them alive for long term storage, especially at room temperature.
Research scientists and commercial companies have developed different dried process to preserve the vegetables and fruits. The main challenges of dried vegetables or fruits are to maintain nutrition and flavors of vegetables and fruits. It is critical during the drying process to maintain the minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, and antioxidants of vegetables or fruits as much as possible, especially for dried vegetable or fruit powders. In addition, during the drying process and storage, the loss of nutrition and flavors of dried vegetables or fruit powders has to be minimal to have the nutritional benefits as fresh vegetables and fruits.
It is well known that when one mixed probiotics with minerals or other animal feed additives, the viability of the probiotics decreased significantly. Single l s encapsulation of the mixture of probiotics with vitamin and mineral supplements within a gelatin capsule resulted in the loss of more than 99.79% of viability of the probiotics (Zimmer, 1996, U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,857). This creates a major challenge: to add probiotics to dried vegetable or fruit powders which required keeping the minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and flavors of the powders while maintaining the viability of the probiotics.
Humans and animals are venerable to become ill under environmental changes, such as separation from family, travel, stay in hotel or boarding facilities, or temperature or by biological changes such as aging, diet changes, pathogens or parasites infection, or antibiotic treatment. Such environmental changes often show an increase in the release of hormones. The most important of these hormones is cortisol from the adrenal cortex. Cortisol causes a suppression of the inflammatory response (Roberts et al. 2006). Prolonged increased levels of cortisol cause a decreased ability to mount an immune response (Roberts et al. 2006). A suppressed immune system impacts the host in many ways, for example, there is a weakened ability to engulf invading bacteria. Elevated blood cortisol affects the fluidity of macrophage membranes; macrophage ability to kill ingested pathogens is reduced when the immune system is suppressed (Mayo Clinic 2006). Medical doctors and veterinarians often treat gastrointestinal (GI) diseases with weeks of antibiotic or steroid therapy. Prolonged use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials, however, can disrupt the populations of beneficial microorganisms in human and animal GI tracts, and cause side effects of digestive disorders. Application of steroids in human and animal often caused disruption of natural hormones, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and skin disease. Usage of probiotics to negate impacts changes caused by environmental or biological changes of humans or animals decreases the reliance medical doctors and veterinarians have on antibiotics and steroids.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification.